Glamour and Greed: The Roaring 20's

"The Roaring 20's", or, "The Jazz Age" was a time when America saw a big change in social skills, fashion, music, entertainment, literature, religion, and mannerisms.  There were many many bitter feuds over issues such as evolution in schools, the Ku Klux Klan, immigration, race, prohibition, and women's roles.  The 1920's was a time of Glamour and Greed, good and bad things came from it.  Women finally earning their right to vote, popular poetry and art, classic novels and plays came from the glittering and short decade, but a high rate of murders and crimes did as well.  America really started to come into it's own during this period.  Famous authors, musicians and artists all made their mark on the world, such as author F. Scott Fitzgerald, poet E. E. Cummings, and artist Charles Demuth. New inventions came naturally with the new age and trends, for example, bathtub gin, flappers and raccoon coats.

The U.S. enter the War.

When the United States got involved in WWI, one third of the army was foreign born and immigrants as children, and over 10 million american citizens came from the Nations of the Central Power.  Millions of Irish Americans sided with The Central Power as well, due to their hatred for the English.

After the U.S. entered the war, in the name of patriotism, musicians stopped playing Bach and Beethoven, American renamed sauerkraut "Liberty Cabbage", schools stopped teaching the German language, and German newspapers were shut down. These things all occurred because of the high rise of searching for German Spies in our Nation.  Even if you didn't purchase war bonds, you were treated harshly, as it was considered unpatriotic. Even street names that had to do with anything German were renamed, such as Berlin Avenue in St. Louis was changed to Pershing.

Sgt. York

On December 13th, 1887, in a one room cabin Alvin Cullum York was born, the third of eleven children.  Alvin York and his family lived in Fentress County, which was located in the Cumberland Mountains of Northern Tennessee.

When Alvin was 27 years old, he led an obnoxious life, full of brawling and drunkenness.  He turned away from that lifestyle, however, on January 1st, 1915, when he attended a church service conducted by Reverend H.H, Russel.  York felt as if he had been hit by a bolt of lightning during that sermon, and he was moved to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.  York then got off the immoral wide path he was on and began to walk the narrow road.  After some time, Alvin York was drafted into the military, which he registered for with an objecting conscience.  After coming home from basic training, however, Alvin struggled with his thought and conviction about going to war.  Finally, he decided that it was God's will that he go. On October 8th, 1918, Alvin York (single-handedly) captured 132 German soldiers, forced a German commander to order a battalion of 35 Machine Guns to surrender,  and only killing 25 German Soldiers in the process.  When York was asked how he did it, he simply replied:

"Sir, it is not man power. A higher power than man power guidedand watched over me and told me what to do." 

Hollywood made his actions into a film in 1941, titled Sargent York.  The real Alvin York lived a simple life after the war. He turned down may offers that would have easily made him $500,000 dollars.  He became a blacksmith, and used the royalties he had earned from the film to found a high school in Jamestown, Tennessee.

Quote from Alvin York: “There can be no doubt in the world of the fact of the divine power being in that. No other power under heaven could bring a man out of a place like that. Men were killed on both sides of me; and I was the biggest and the most exposed of all. Over thirty machine guns were maintaining rapid fire at me, point-blank from a range of about twenty-five yards. When you have God behind you, you can come out on top every time.” 

Sources:  http://www.sgtyorkdiscovery.com/The_York_Story.php
                http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3471
Image:    http://mentalfloss.com/article/22768/sergeant-alvin-york

A Prediction That Came True

Many opponents of suffrage argued that politics would debase, de-feminize, and destroy the family. At an 1894 state convention, Kansas Democrats said the vote for women would "destroy the home and family." In 1918, an Alabama representative predicted:

There will be no more domestic tranquility in this nation. No more "Home Sweet Home," no more lullabies to the baby. Suffrage will destroy the best thing in our lives and leave in our hearts an aching void that the world can never fill.

Digital History, 2014.